The 2016 Global Information Society Watch report focuses on socio-economic human rights. It makes a persuasive case that internet access should be a human right because it acts as a gateway to the realisation of other human rights.
The report, which stretches to over 250 pages, features country reports on 45 countries, including Argentina, China, Italy, Morocco, Russia and Yemen.
The country reports illustrate the link between the internet and economic, social and cultural rights including:
- the right to health (covered in the country reports of Bangladesh, Chile, India, Nepal and Uganda and others)
- the right to education (covered in a number of country reports including Kenya, Kosovo, Morocco, Romania, Senegal and Uruguay)
- internet use to empower women (included in the country reports of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Russia, South Africa, Spain and Turkey)
- vulnerable groups and minorities (covered in the country reports of Argentina, Italy, Nigeria and others)
Other parts of the report explore broad themes including the digital protection of traditional knowledge; preserving digital culture for the future and overcoming obstacles through collaboration.
The section on preserving our digital culture for the future, authors from IFLA call for international collaboration between policy makers, copyright law makers, technology and content creators and calls on librarians to engage with each other at a national level to ensure that the crucial role they play in preservation are reflected in national development plans.
The full report is available to download here.